CAREER: Precision Spectroscopy of milliKelvin Trapped Molecular Ions

该奖项由2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法111-5)资助。该职业奖项支持一项实验研究计划，该计划旨在开发对冷囚禁分子离子进行高精度测量的新技术。最近证明了带电分子的交感冷却到亚开尔文温度，这为分子光谱学的精度提高了几个数量级开辟了道路。然而，冷分子-离子光谱学这个羽翼未丰的领域仍有待几项技术发展，包括制备定义明确的激发内态的捕获分子，以及开发通常用于捕获原子但尚未用于分子的无多普勒技术。这些技术将被开发并用于观察分子能级在几年的过程中的逐渐变化，从而寻找电子-质子质量比的时间变化。令人惊讶的是，许多试图将量子力学与引力相结合的理论预测，自然界的这一“常数”会随着时间的变化而变化，发现这种时变将彻底改变我们对宇宙的理解。这项工作的更广泛影响来自于利用实验室研究和当地资源进行有效的教育和推广。将与塔金顿卓越学校的校长合作，开发一个4-6年级的互动科学星期六计划。塔金顿卓越学校是伊利诺伊州第一所获得绿色认证的学校，位于芝加哥以拉丁裔为主的马奎特公园社区。该计划将专注于能源科学，使用西北大学开发的材料世界模块，来自Anser(Argonne Northwest Solar Energy Research)的资源，以及由该奖项支持的实验研究计划的概念。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This CAREER award supports an experimental research program to develop new techniques for high-precision measurements on cold trapped molecular ions. Sympathetic cooling of charged molecules to sub-Kelvin temperatures has recently been demonstrated, opening the way for orders of magnitude improvement in the accuracy available to molecular spectroscopy. However, the fledgling field of cold molecular-ion spectroscopy still awaits several technical developments, including preparation of trapped molecules in well-defined excited internal states and development of Doppler-free techniques commonly used for trapped atoms but not yet for molecules. These techniques will be developed and used to watch for gradual changes of molecular energy levels over the course of several years, thereby searching for time-variation of the electron-proton mass ratio. Surprisingly, this "constant" of nature is predicted to vary in time by many theories attempting to combine quantum mechanics with gravity, and discovery of such a time-variation would revolutionize our understanding of the universe.The broader impacts of this work result from leveraging both the laboratory research and local resources for effective education and outreach. An interactive Grades 4-6 Science Saturdays program will be developed in cooperation with the principal of Tarkington School of Excellence, the first Green-certified school in Illinois, located in the predominately Latino Marquette Park neighborhood of Chicago. The program will focus on the science of energy, using Materials World Modules developed at Northwestern University, resources from ANSER (Argonne Northwestern Solar Energy Research), and concepts from the experimental research program supported by this award.